Ed Cannon writes
>Last night (04:05:09 August 2 UTC) there was a very bright fireball
>event over central Texas. I was fortunate enough to see it myself!
>
>Some sourse has told a local TV station that it may have been a
>14-year-old Cosmos rocket. I'm not sure which object they are
>considering, but I'm sure it was a natural meteor. But just to
>cover bases, might there have been a space-junk re-entry possibly
>visible over central Texas last night, northbound?
No, Ed. The only object of any sort that I show decaying today, August
2, is #29220, Cosmos 1703 SL-14 deb AU, whose orbital plane would have
been northbound off the US Pacific coast at 04:05:09 UTC. I estimate
decay at August 2.5, but the latest (final?) elset is more than 18 hours
prior to this so the uncertainty is several hours. I've no idea what the
"14-year-old Cosmos rocket" refers to. The observer reports in
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5230270
do point strongly to a meteoric object of brief duration. (Thanks to
Ed's message in the meteorobs list for the URL).
Alan
--
Alan Pickup / COSPAR 2707: 55.8968N 3.1989W +208m (WGS84 datum)
Edinburgh / SatEvo Home Page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/
Scotland / Decay Watch: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/
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